Bituminous roofing membranes are typically torch-applied. The roofer holds a torch in his hand and sweeps it across the underside of an unrolled length of bituminous membrane to cause the membrane to adhere to the underlying flat (or low pitch) roof decking surface. In addition to the torch welder, at least two other operators are typically needed to properly unroll and aligned the membranes in order to provide a uniform and constant longitudinal lap joints along the sides of adjacent laid down membranes.
This process is labour intensive and the quality of the membrane installation varies greatly according to the skills and the attention of the roofers. Also, this work is physically demanding and often results in injuries.
To overcome the shortcomings of manual application of bituminous membranes, several devices and apparatuses have been proposed.
For instance, in U.S. Pat. No. 7,347,244, a membrane applicator is disclosed in which the membrane is unrolled, heated and pressed as the applicator moves on the roof decking surface. Though the disclosed applicator significantly reduces human intervention in the application of bituminous membranes, its configuration makes it difficult to safely remove empty rolls of membrane and install new rolls. Due to the presence of several burners near the idler and pressing rollers, roofers often burn themselves during roll changes. In that sense, since a typical roll of membrane lasts only for a few minutes, roll changes occur relatively frequently, thereby increasing the risks of injuries.
Hence, despite recent developments in the field of apparatuses for applying membranes, there is a need for a membrane applying apparatus that will at least mitigate some of the shortcomings of prior apparatuses.